Stricken with the deadly smallpox, Abraham convalesced in Charleston in the late winter of 1760 before embarking on another round-trip journey carrying official messages through the dangerous Cherokee territory. Having witnessed grotesque scenes o...
Today we continue our narrative of the enslaved man Abraham by following his perilous solo trek from the Cherokee mountains of eastern Tennessee to the coastal port of Charleston, with a few pit stops along the way. Promised freedom if he could co...
The Oscar buzz surrounding the 2018 film, Green Book, has generated a lot of public interest in the publication that inspired the name of the movie. Charleston isn’t part of the film’s 1962 storyline, but our community was definitely included in t...
Abraham, an enslaved “Negro” man belonging to an Indian trader named Samuel Benn, was an obscure witness to the escalating tensions between Anglo-American forces in South Carolina and the Cherokee people who lived far to the west of their settleme...
Today I’d like to introduce you to Abraham the Unstoppable, the true adventure story of an enslaved man of African descent who won his freedom during the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1759–61. First we’ll explore the background of that unfamiliar war an...
The 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first permanent African residents in 1619 Virginia provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the legacy of slavery. In today’s episode, I’ll try to situate this anniversary in a broader, internationa...
By the middle of the eighteenth century, Charleston was one of the most heavily fortified communities in North America. The town’s urban defenses didn’t appear all at once, however. They accumulated over multiple decades and successive eras of war...
Ropemaker’s Lane is a narrow alley in urban Charleston with a name that evokes images of an antique industry wrought by men twisting and spinning long fibers into useful objects. While that scenario is accurate, it represents just one facet of the...
I’d like to share a story that evokes the duality of Charleston’s colorful and painful history. Many of the stories we tell ourselves and visitors about our community’s history have a bright side and a not-so-bright side, and both aspects deserve ...
If you’ve ever wondered what Christmas was like on a Lowcountry plantation in Antebellum times, William Gilmore Simms has the answers. His 1852 novella, The Golden Christmas, is a lighthearted, sunny tale of romance and comedy that floats carele...
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